• The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, July 21, 2009 1:45 PM

Asia's share of the global online population is growing steadily, while North America's is shrinking, according to a new report from Forrester Research. In just four years, Asia's total will swell to 43% of the active online population, up from 38% in 2008, while North America's will shrink to 13%, down from 17% in 2008, Forrester says. Europe, like North America, will see its percentage of the online population decrease to 22% from 26% over the next four years, while Latin America will remain unchanged at 11%, and Africa and the Middle East will bring up the rear at 10%. By 2014, the overall total will be about 2.17 billion, up from 1.46 billion last year.

Moreover, China's online population is poised to surpass the U.S. this year, although other research reports claim it already has. Either way, "the U.S. is not going to be the center of the Internet universe," says report author Zia Daniell Wigder. However, she notes that online population doesn't directly correlate to spending power, since spending is relatively low in Asia. Even so, audiences in large countries like China, India, and Indonesia represent a potentially lucrative new market for many businesses.

Forrester used countries' financial health, online penetration, and socioeconomic factors like literacy and poverty rates to arrive at the population estimates, The Wall Street Journal says.

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